Tuesday, June 28, 2011

With THRIVE Garden Vegetable Seeds, you can have all your favorite garden-fresh veggies in your own home garden. All seeds are non-hybrid and true to variety, so you can feel confident that your garden vegetables are fresh from the ground straight to your kitchen table. If stored in cool conditions and planted as directed, one can of THRIVE Garden Vegetable Seeds can yield hundreds of wholesome vegetables for your family that are delicious both when canned or fresh.

Also included in your package is one Planting Harvesting,and Seed Collecting Guide that will teach you how cultivate and grow your garden to its full potential. Whether you are a natural green-thumb or a gardening novice, you will enjoy reaping the rewards of your THRIVE Vegetable Garden.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Freeze-dried food and the new frugal frontier

The Huffmans are stocking up on cheese powder, dehydrated tomatoes and canned ham, watching warily as food and fuel prices rise despite a supposedly recovering economy. And they're not alone.

By Faye Fiore, Los Angeles Times

April 11, 2011

Reporting from Toms Brook, Va.—

The laundry room of Tamara Huffman's split-level here in the Shenandoah Valley is filling up with cheese powder and freeze-dried ham, at the ready should her husband, Brian, lose his job anytime in the next 25 years. She carves a little bit out of their already tight budget every month to buy some more.

This sort of stockpiling was once the purview of survivalists preparing for Armageddon. But Huffman's fear isn't the end of the world so much as the $5 basket of grape tomatoes she bypassed the other day at her local supermarket.

"The price of everything is going up. I have no idea what's going to happen," Huffman says, assessing her growing collection of dehydrated and freeze-dried food in cans that look like house paint — pink is fruit, green is vegetables, blue is dairy, orange is grains — much of it with a shelf life that won't expire until her second-grader, Chloe, is 32. Whatever she stocks at today's prices her family can eat at tomorrow's sure-to-be-higher ones.

The Huffmans are not among the millions of families who have lost their jobs or homes in the Great Recession. Indeed, Brian Huffman's career as a computer engineer at a local hospital has been going strong for more than a decade, and their modest home in rural Virginia is worth more today than when they bought it 14 years ago.

What this economic crisis stole from them was their sense of well-being. First there was the foreclosure sign that went up on the neighbor's dream house down the block; it's somebody else's dream now. Then the light bulb factory in nearby Winchester closed last fall, taking 200 jobs with it.

And recently they saw gas at the truck stop down the road shoot up 19 cents a gallon in a single afternoon. Brian filled up their 6-year-old minivan before it went any higher, and his wife wondered whether it was possible to store a barrel in the backyard without blowing the neighborhood to smithereens.

Not unlike the generation that survived the Great Depression and spent the rest of their lives pinching pennies, some middle-class Americans have developed a sense of thrift that is lasting even as the economic crisis loosens its grip. The so-called Great Recession was declared officially over last fall, yet consumer confidence — or lack of it — remains consistent with an economy in deep trouble.

"The people at the top of the ladder were hardly affected, but the people in the middle got squeezed. They got scared. So many middle-management jobs have disappeared, there is no place to move up," said James Tillotson, professor of food policy and international business at Tufts University in Boston. "They walk the grocery aisles with little adding machines."

Sales of store brands and coupon-clipping are on the rise, according to Alliance Bernstein, which researches industry trends, and Inmar CMS Promotion Services, the nation's biggest coupon processor.

Costco's Great Gift Ideas catalogue last Christmas included a one-year, four-person supply of dehydrated and freeze-dried food on sale for $2,999. It sold out.

The fear factor alone can drive families to avoid restaurants and stock up on coffee in ways that would have seemed extreme a few years ago.

"There are all kinds of ways consumers can feel this," said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody's Analytics. "With unemployment hitting 10%, most people probably know someone who has lost their job. Housing markets haven't recovered yet and that matters for about two-thirds of consumers who are homeowners."

The recession is likely to produce a wave of more risk-averse investors, the 40-somethings wary of a stock market that has sputtered and tanked most of their adult lives, said Stefan Nagel, a Stanford University financial economist who studied the economy's effect on stock buying.

That sort of caution can seep into everyday buying habits of people like the Huffmans who don't have a portfolio to worry about, just a family of four to feed — "an increased pessimism about the future that can lead people to become more thrifty," Nagel said.

Brian and Tami Huffman weren't always so frugal. Yes, they wisely settled for an $85,000 house when the mortgage companies were insisting they could afford more. But they also bought a new Mustang with less-than-great gas mileage and splurged on a $2,000 electric piano for an exchange student who stayed a year.

Today, the Huffmans cannot imagine such extravagances. Brian is 37, Tami is 45, and they live on his five-figure income. She home-schools Chloe, 7, and Dylan, 10, and makes it her job in these uncertain times to be "financially savvy."

A year ago they canceled the satellite dish. She started baking her own bread (25 cents a loaf vs. $3) and making her own laundry detergent from borax and bar soap rather than spending $12 on a jug of Tide.

Some would say her anxieties are getting the best of her. But the way Tami Huffman sees it, middle-class families have hit a wall while the price of everything has nowhere to go but north.

Her husband's cost-of living raises are frozen. No one is talking about layoffs at the hospital where he works, but no one's promising there won't be layoffs either. Retirement is a crapshoot. And the heart disease that runs in his family isn't lost on her.

What if he gets sick? She had one year of college and her last job was managing fast-food stores. The least she can do is be prepared.

"I grew up in an affluent home with no idea what it was to manage money. My husband was an only child who didn't want for much. We had to learn," she says, checking her watch. This particular afternoon, she is waiting for 100 pounds of grass-fed beef from a local rancher — steaks, roasts and hamburger averaging $2.60 a pound.

Mostly, people are trying to spend less and save more — three times more than they were four years ago, according to the Department of Commerce. For Christmas, the Huffman children got piggy banks with three slots: one for charity, one for spending and one for a rainy day.

Tillotson said there was reason for concern. Americans spend more than $1 trillion a year on food — 1 out of every 5 retail dollars, on average. And the prices of food and fuel (which affects the price of food) are headed up in the 21st century, according to federal statistics.

Such dim predictions have been a boon for businesses like Shelf Reliance, the Utah-based company that makes food storage shelves and the canned foods the Huffmans are buying. The company recently shifted its marketing strategy from emergency preparedness to recession consciousness, encouraging customers not only to store the stuff for later but to eat some of it now, dipping into the tomato powder when the real thing hits $5 a basket.

At the same time, corporate giants such as Clorox and Kimberly-Clark struggle as consumers "trade down" from more costly name brands to generic labels, said Stephen Powers, an equity analyst with AllianceBernstein. He cited a 2010 survey by his firm that found that nearly half of consumers who had made such a switch weren't sure they'd switch back, even if the economy improves.

"It could be a long, arduous process before they go back to pre-recession behaviors," Tillotson said.

While there is nothing wrong with being prepared, Tillotson is skeptical of products that claim to last longer on the shelf than the lifespan of the average horse.

"You can't keep people from getting old no matter what you do to them. Food is the same way. In five years it may taste like a dog's breakfast."

Tami Huffman says she doesn't care; the peace of mind is worth it. She only wishes she'd started sooner. How many people can whip up a casserole from freeze-dried diced ham and cheese powder anytime they want, with just a trip to the laundry room?

"I consider it my training ground for retirement," Huffman says. "I hope I never have to open my food storage until my husband retires, but I know it will last that long. I'm eight years older than he is, but women live longer than men. I may be sitting down here by myself eating my freeze-dried strawberries from a can."

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Levees hold as Souris River crests at historic high

By Geoff Davidian | Reuters – Sun, Jun 26, 2011

MINOT, North Dakota (Reuters) - The Souris River crested to historic heights in North Dakota's fourth largest city of Minot early on Sunday, but emergency levees held providing respite to officials battling to keep areas dry.

The Souris, which flows from Canada southeast into North Dakota, rose early on Sunday morning to almost four feet above the 130-year-old record it shattered on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

There have been no reported deaths or injuries in the biggest flood in area history but floodwaters have all but swallowed more than 3,000 homes and displaced more than 12,000 Minot-area residents.

"Even though this crest has passed, there is still a tremendous amount of water," U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Jeffrey DeZellar said.

DeZellar added that rain dumped by thunderstorms late Saturday had pooled in shallow ponds on the land-side of some area levees forcing workers to wade or drive through them.

The storms did not cause any of the floodwater to swell over levees.

More thunderstorms are still possible on Sunday said Steve Goss, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.

"Severe storms aren't likely, though, and it looks like the foods won't be aggravated by rainfall," Goss said.

Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman said water levels will remain high for several days and praised the fortitude of the residents displaced by mandatory evacuations.

Authorities tried in vain to remove a walking bridge that collapsed in the middle of the river. The bridge remains stable but poses a threat to a downriver dam.

Officials' attention has turned to displaced residents, more than 12,000 of whom heeded mandatory evacuation calls.

Some moved in with friends or family, but more than 250 people were holed up in Red Cross shelters at a city auditorium and Minot State University or at the Minot Air Force Base.

More evacuees were reported from the towns of Turtle Lake, Velva and Sawyer, among others, according to Allan McGeough, executive director of the mid-Dakota chapter of the American Red Cross.

As many as 300 people in Velva will require shelter, McGeough said.

In Sawyer, about 16 miles southeast of Minot, 400 residents were told to evacuate on Saturday after river water rushed through a downtown roadway. The levees in Sawyer are holding.

Flood warnings have been issued throughout the region.

The massive flooding in Minot has overshadowed temporarily the widening deluge along the Missouri River that threatens cities all the way from Montana to Missouri.

Federal officials have pushed record water releases from six reservoirs along the Upper Missouri River that are near capacity because of a deep melting snowpack and heavy rains.

Those reservoirs have little capacity for additional rain, and record releases are expected to continue through August, causing widespread flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri.

Heavy rains across the Souris River Basin left Canadian reservoirs over capacity. Water rushing down from Canada has forced U.S. officials to make record-large releases from the Lake Darling Dam above Minot and other communities.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Flood preparedness begins by assessing the risk factor for your area. As a normal standard, if your area is one that has the potential for flooding, the local authorities will usually give advisory warnings on communities most likely affected and what you should do to protect your home and property. It may even call for an evacuation. It will be imperative that you keep up to date with any and all directives as they may include the safest evacuation routes, places to be avoided and community shelters where you and your family can ride out the duration of the flood event.

It may be that you will be given enough advance warning so as to gather the members of your family together. However, from time to time things happen so quickly that this is not a guaranteed situation. So begin by putting an emergency plan into action that every family member can understand and follow.

For safety procedures it will be important to know how to turn off electrical and natural gas sources in the home. Next, you will want to have emergency kits easily accessible and ready to go. Have a simple plan for any pets and livestock that need to be evacuated as well. Set up a specific and safe meeting place that everyone can reach that is outside of the affected area. In today's high tech world it is common for most families to carry cell phones. This is helpful in co-ordinating where every member of the family is, but nonetheless, it can be beneficial to select an out-of-state or province emergency contact number where family can check in and if need be receive any updates on what may be happening with other family members.

It is good to be aware of other members of your community as well. It may be that some, due to old age or infirmities are unable to respond to an immediate emergency. What can be done to coordinate their safe evacuation? It may be vital to designate certain individuals specifically before an emergency arises. Then if this individual is unable to follow through for some reason or another, they will be able to notify others so that no one is forgotten or vital time wasted because of some confusion on the matter.

An emergency supply kit should contain some water, nonperishable food, any necessary medications, personal toiletries, (perhaps some extra warm socks!), a radio, flashlights, extra batteries, and any important family documents which could include family identifications. If possible it could help to add in a bit of extra cash that would help tide you over for a few days. These things can be stored in containers that are waterproof for that added bit of protection.

At times such as these, one can appreciate that keeping your vehicle in good working order and having the gas tank full will eliminate any extra stress in making a speedy evacuation.

Initially it may seem a bit much to put these measures into place. But more and more we can appreciate the fact that we are living in a world where our safety or even immediate governmental aid in emergencies isn't guaranteed. In recent years, governments have cautioned their citizens to be prepared to take care of themselves for at least 72 hours in the event of any major catastrophe. The general principles outlined here can work for any type of emergency.

10 Facts About Floods

Since 1900, floods have taken more than 10,000 lives in the United States alone.

Flash floods often bring walls of water 10 to 20 feet high.

95% of those killed in a flash flood try to outrun the waters along their path rather than climbing rocks or going uphill to higher grounds.

66 % of flood deaths occur in vehicles, and most happen when drivers make a single, fatal mistake trying to navigate through flood waters.

Just 6 inches of rapidly moving flood water can knock a person down.

A mere 2 feet of water can float a large vehicle even a bus.

1/3 of flooded roads and bridges are so damaged by water that any vehicle trying to cross stands only a 50% chance of making it to the other side.

The great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 covered an area 500 miles long and 200 miles wide. More than 50,000 homes were damaged, and 12,000 miles of farmland were washed out.

Hurricanes, winter storms and snowmelt are common (but often overlooked) causes of flooding.

New land development can increase flood risk, especially if the construction changes natural runoff path.

Providence Basic Travel Two Person 72-hour EmergencyThis two-person 72 hour travel kit is ideal for people who are frequently away from home. Store this kit in a suitcase, car, or backpack and you will always be prepared wherever you may go. The kit includes:

Thrive Q is a monthly food Storage program that takes the stress out of building a long term food supply. Create your own custom plan, set up a monthly budget and pay as you go.

Before you know it you'll have everything you need to feel prepared and you won't brake the bank.

Food Storage is an important part of emergency preparedness, and we want every individual and family to have the peace of mind that comes with building a long-term supply. However, we also understand the needs and budgets of every person vary. Food storage can be costly and time-consuming -- until now! Enter the THRIVE™ Q.

With the THRIVE™ Q, you build a customized food storage plan that we divide into monthly shipments. If you are unsure of where to start, simply use the THRIVE™ Planner, our food storage calculator, to determine how much you need. You can also add specific items to your THRIVE™ Q if you already know what you want.

Begin working on your THRIVE™ Q by setting a monthly budget. Your budget can be altered to accommodate changing circumstances, and you can even skip shipments in months when money is tight. With the THRIVE™ Q, you can build your supply without feeling the burden of debt.

Each month, the Q will create a new order that includes food from your list, and will be processed* on the day of your choice. The Q is designed to work automatically; monthly orders will be generated from your list by our program. The THRIVE™ Q requires no customer maintenance once it is activated with your payment information. Of course, you always have the option to edit your plan or add new items as you see fit.

The THRIVE™ Q is meant to give you more freedom and control over your food storage. There's no need to buy all of your food at once or keep track of what you need with endless lists and spreadsheets. Rather, you're able to receive everything you want at a gradual pace, using a monthly price that fits your budget and life.

Food storage doesn't get any easier than this. What are you waiting for? Try the THRIVE™ Q today!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Matt Rutherford, a sailor from Annapolis, Maryland is daring to achieve the impossible. Over the next 310 days, Rutherford will attempt to sail 23,000 nautical miles around North and South America by way of the Northwest Passage. No one has ever before made this journey, so Rutherford is quite literally blazing the trail.

Shelf Reliance is inspired by Rutherford’s determination and they will be supporting him all along the way. Shelf Reliance will be sponsoring Rutherford’s solo voyage by supplying him with a year’s supply of delicious, healthy, and convenient THRIVE foods. Rutherford is excited to begin his journey and he is certain THRIVE will provide him with the proper nutrition he needs to achieve this incredible goal.

LINDON, Utah, 13 June 2011 - Shelf Reliance will sponsor Matt Rutherford as he attempts a solo sailing voyage circumnavigating North and South America. When Rutherford completes his voyage he will be the first person to sail continuously around both continents. Rutherford’s voyage began June 10th in Annapolis, Maryland. The voyage is 23,000 nautical miles (about 26,500 miles), which Rutherford intends to travel in ten and a half months.

To help support Rutherford’s efforts, Shelf Reliance has supplied him with a year’s supply of their freeze-dried and dehydrated THRIVE foods. All proceeds from Rutherford’s voyage go to supporting the Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB), a charitable organization dedicated to helping special needs individuals fulfill their dreams of sailing.

Jason Norton, Shelf Reliance Executive Vice President: “We are excited to team up with Rutherford for his dedicated work to bring exposure to CRAB. Since we provide high quality food with a long shelf life, it was a natural fit for us to support Rutherford’s voyage. We are excited for Rutherford to experience our great-tasting food in an environment that requires simple convenience and proper nutrition.”

Matt Rutherford: "I couldn't have done the trip without Shelf Reliance because they were able to completely customize my order. With THRIVE, I will receive the nutrition and variety I need for my voyage. All of the Shelf Reliance consultants and corporate management I have worked with have been very friendly and helpful as they have worked to prepare me for the trip.”

Customers will soon be able to receive news of Rutherford’s voyage and track his mileage and location on the corporate site. Upon his return, Rutherford will share some of his favorite moments during his solo voyage at the annual Shelf Reliance convention and will encourage individuals to dare to accomplish their own dreams.

Shelf Reliance is excited to begin the partnership with Rutherford because they believe it will demonstrate that with superior products and sound education, Shelf Reliance can empower individuals to become self-reliant, prosperous, and charitable.

We all have our own reasons for wanting to have that safety net. When I started I had know idea where to start. I was trying to learn how to can,dehydrated vacuum seal and trying to figure out how to make complete meals. You name it I wanted to learn it, the biggest problem I had was what do I need? How much do I need? And how am I going to fit this in to our budget?

That is when I came across Shelf Reliance it took all of the guess work out of food storage for me.
I quickly signed up and now I am sharing my food storage journey with you.